The Higher Education Act of 1964 was amended in the 1970s to include Title IX, a law prohibiting discriminatory practices in Federally funded educational institutions on the basis of sex. If you think about Title IX, you probably think it solely addresses college and university athletics, requiring an athletics program to have equal opportunities for women’s sports as it does for men.
This is partially true. Yes, Title IX does prohibit discrimination in college athletics.
What Is Title IX?
However, it is more sweeping than that. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in ANY program funded by the US Department of Education. Have state vouchers and offer free lunches using the school lunch program? You are covered under Title IX. Are you looking at a college or university who uses the FAFSA in their scholarship and financial assistance programs? They are covered under Title IX. Work at a Head Start program? You are covered under Title IX.
So last week, while media and political commentators were discussing the billions in aid and loans that Congress passed for our foreign allies, including the three most discussed countries of Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel, the Biden Department of Education proposed sweeping changes to their policies implementing Title IX coverage.
According to The Daily Wire’s Saturday interview with Sarah Parshall Perry, these changes will impact every educational institution in the United States.
Before I dip my toes into the muddied waters of the proposed changes, I just want to take a moment to breathe a prayer of thanks and sigh of relief that neither Aletheia Christian College nor our One-Room Schools accept any form of state or federal funds for our educational programs.
The Text
The policy changes are available on the Department of Education’s website. On first glance, I realized that there are 1561 pages to this policy document. This is a mere 137 pages less than my NASB version of the Bible. So, I doubt that anyone has really read the entirety of this document, including any bureaucrats who wrote it.
Second, we have already seen lawsuits challenging the religious exemptions to Title IX, which impacts sexual orientation and “gender identity.” While religious institutions’ specific exemptions from Title IX were upheld as recently as 2023, the inclusion of gender identity will impact any institution that is not controlled by a religious organization. And on pages 1285-1286 of the proposed rule changes, the department states that the proposed changes should not impact the religious exemptions already codified in law. “If an institution wishes to claim an exemption, its highest-ranking official may submit a written statement to the 1285 Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, identifying the provisions of Title IX that conflict with a specific tenet of the controlling religious organization. 34 CFR 106.12(b).”
Third, according to Perry, the changes revert to an Obama-era policy of claims against an individual under Title IX being reviewed at the sole discretion of a single administrator within the college. While the Trump educational policies provided for due process for the individuals who would be accused of sexual assault under Title IX, these policy proposals remove the majority of these proposals. So, individuals can be accused of violating another person’s rights and have permanent educational and professional marks on record without any of the God-given rights protected by the US Constitution. The Trump administration had also required that an accusation of sexual assault under Title IX had to be simultaneously submitted to local law enforcement for a criminal investigation while the institution’s administration did its investigations. This protection for victims on college campuses was removed in the Biden administration’s policy updates.
What Does it Mean for Your School?
As we teach in our Legal Issues in Education class, if you are going to be educating beyond your home, you should adopt a Statement of Faith. For-Profit, public-facing institutions are not guaranteed the same rights as individuals or non-profit religious institutions. Although Hobby Lobby won their case against the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive requirements, they paid a tremendous price to sue the US Government over the contraceptive requirements. There is no guarantee that you will not be sued by someone for discrimination under Title IX even if you have religious protections.
Besides writing a Statement of Faith and moral codes of conduct or covenants, we recommend that you do not accept money from tax-funded sources. This recommendation pits against many on the right who are working hard for so-called school choice options where the state provides funding for private and/or home education through vouchers or tax credits. These movements, while well-intentioned, are only giving control of the purse to the same bureaucrats who regularly write 1600 page documents changing policies according to the political whims of the moment.
Today, those whims are to impose radical critical gender-theory on US educational institutions at every level. And, as one of our students discovered when Oklahoma passed their school-choice law, these purse strings quickly start to shape those who accept the funds. Oklahoma’s first requirement was that funding could only go to accredited institutions, thus cutting out any new competition from gaining a foothold without significant funding and access to capital. One of our One-Room School Intensive students also pointed out that the state government was discussing about offering options like the school lunch program to schools who accepted tuition vouchers. These federally funded programs would immediately tie private schools into not only state-funded issues but also federal issues.
It’s best to avoid financial entanglements between your school and taxpayer funds entirely.
